Hurricane Florence makes landfall in North Carolina

Washington, Sep 15 : At least seven people were killed as hurricane Florence made landfall in the US state of North Carolina, battering the state with a powerful combination of wind and rain. Warnings were issued about the risk of life-threatening flash flooding in parts of North and South Carolina as well as in Virginia.

It was downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm on Friday, but continued to soak the East Coast area with rain, downing trees and damaging homes. Some areas grappled with intense flooding, while hundreds in the city of New Bern and North Carolina required rescue in the early hours of Saturday.

Parts of New Bern and North Carolina were 10 feet underwater after local rivers overflowed their banks. Thousands of people were staying in emergency shelters. Evacuation warnings were issued for 1.7 million people in the region, the US media reported.

Florence was slowly grinding over the eastern states, with winds of 65mph (105km/h). It was expected to keep lashing parts of North and South Carolina into the weekend, according to the Washington Post.

Up to 40 inches of rain and storm surges pushing water inland will produce catastrophic flash flooding, the National Hurricane Centre said.

Two people in Carteret County died due to the storm, officials said. A mother and her infant were killed in Wilmington when a tree fell on their home. According to officials, the child’s father was also transported to hospital with injuries.

Two men in their 70s were killed in Lenoir County. One was killed while connecting an electrical generator and another man was killed in a wind-related incident when checking on dogs outside his property.

A county official said that a woman died from cardiac arrest in the town of Hampstead after emergency responders had their route to reach her blocked by downed trees.

The White House announced on Saturday that President Donald Trump approved a disaster declaration for North Carolina a day earlier, an order that opens up federal funding, including housing and home repair grants.

The storm originally made landfall at Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, on Friday as a category one hurricane.

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said the hurricane was likely to “continue its violent grind for days” and described the severity of the downfalls as a “1,000 year event”.

Almost 800,000 people are reported to be without power in North Carolina and officials have warned that restoring electricity could take days or even weeks.

White House restores press pass for CNN’s Jim Acosta

The White House on Monday said that CNN correspondent Jim Acosta’s press pass has been “restored,” bowing to days of pressure and a federal lawsuit against the administration.

CNN signaled that it would drop the ongoing litigation over Acosta’s access to the White House.

“Today the White House fully restored Jim Acosta’s press pass. As a result, our lawsuit is no longer necessary,” the network said in a statement. “We look forward to continuing to cover the White House.”

Monday afternoon’s announcement, what the White House called a “final determination,” was an abrupt shift from the administration’s earlier positions.

India, Vietnam should revive maritime connect : Kovind

Hanoi, Nov 19 : President Ram Nath Kovind on Monday called for reviving maritime connect between India and Vietnam as he exhorted increase in bilateral trade from the current $ 12.8 billion and more cooperation in the areas of agriculture, pharmaceuticals, textiles and IT.

“There was a flourishing maritime connect in the past. In the last 8 years, we have seen almost four fold increase in bilateral trade, from 3.7 billion US dollars in 2010 to 12.8 US dollars last year. Agriculture has been a key sector of our cooperation involving trade, investment and training,” Kovind said while addressing the Vietnam-India Business Forum here.

“We feel privileged to have supported the Vietnamese agricultural revolution through the establishment of Cuu Long Rice Research Institute,” he said.

Stating that Vietnam is a huge agricultural economy with agro-marine-forestry exports surpassing $35 billion last year, Kovind said that agricultural products already occupy over 45 per cent of India-Vietnam bilateral trade.

“Indian industry can also learn from Vietnam’s success in crops such as coffee, pepper, cashew, fruits and vegetables.”

The President also said that the Indian pharmaceuticals industry, the third largest in terms of volume and the world’s largest provider of generic drugs, can partner Vietnam in providing quality health-care, medicines and medical devices for the public health system at an affordable cost.

“Indian pharmaceutical companies are also looking at domestic production opportunities in Vietnam,” Kovind said.

He pointed out that both India and Vietnam are leading players in the textile industry.

“We must cooperate further to facilitate integration of value chains,” Kovind said.

He also highlighted significant opportunities between the two sides in the oil and gas, power, infrastructure and renewable energy sectors.

Stating that the Indian IT services, including digital economy and fin-tech sector have much to offer to Vietnamese growth, Kovind said start-up sectors and innovation based industry must be encouraged to leverage each other.

“We must also learn from each other on how to improve productivity; how to approach the Fourth Industrial Revolution; how to promote innovation and entrepreneurship; and not the least, how to leverage technology for governance,” he stated.

Vietnam is a key partner country of India in Southeast Asia and served as New Delhi’s coordinator country with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) regional bloc till July this year

India and Vietnam have set a bilateral trade target of $15 billion by 2020.

Later, Kovind also addressed an Indian community reception during which he invited members of the community to attend next year’s Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, the External Affairs Ministry-organised conclave of the Indian diaspora.

Pakistan PM Imran Khan Lashes Out at Trump ‘Tirade’

Islamabad, Nov 19 :Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday rejected the US President’s allegations that Islamabad failed to cooperate with the US and had helped the former Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden hide in the country until his death at the hands of the US military in a covert operation in 2011.

Imran Khan said in a series of tweets that Islamabad had joined the American war on terror even though no Pakistani national was involved in the 9/11 terror attack in the US.

“Instead of making Pakistan a scapegoat for their failures, the US should do a serious assessment of why, despite 140,000 NATO troops plus 250,000 Afghan troops and reportedly $1 trillion spent on war in Afghanistan, the Taliban today are stronger than before,” Imran Khan tweeted in response to Donald Trump’s remarks.

On Sunday, Trump accused the Pakistani government of hiding Bin Laden in its territory in an interview to broadcaster Fox News and claimed that despite the US giving $1.3 billion annually to Islamabad, the latter had done nothing.

“(Bin Laden) lived in Pakistan, we’re supporting Pakistan, we’re giving them $1.3 billion a year. I ended it because they don’t do anything for us, they don’t do a damn thing for us,” Trump had said.

“Think of this – living in Pakistan, beautifully in Pakistan in what I guess they considered a nice mansion,” said the US President, adding that Laden’s hideout had been next to a military academy.

In January, Washington announced the suspension of the major part of its security aid to Pakistan until Islamabad took “decisive” steps against terrorist groups such as the Taliban, which threaten “regional stability and American interests”.